SAT Reading & Writing · Central Ideas and Details
In a nineteenth-century novel, a young clerk repeatedly walks past an expensive restaurant on his way home but never enters. After…
In a nineteenth-century novel, a young clerk repeatedly walks past an expensive restaurant on his way home but never enters. After receiving a promotion, he stops at the door, studies the menu, and then continues to the modest cafe he has always used. The scene suggests that the promotion has changed what he can afford more quickly than it has changed the habits by which he understands himself.
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Which choice best states the main idea of the text?
Answer and explanation
Answer: C: The clerk’s response to his promotion shows that changes in circumstance can precede changes in self-conception and habit.
The scene's central tension is between the clerk's newly increased means and his unchanged habits, and C names that tension directly without overstating it into a complete transformation. A invents an explanation about menu-reading the passage never supports. B contradicts the passage, which shows the clerk still choosing the modest cafe instead of immediately changing his lifestyle. D is a minor, incidental detail that doesn't capture the scene's main point about the gap between circumstance and self-conception.
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